Despite house price falls and rises in wages, in London the average resident still needs to save every penny they earn for 13.1 years to afford the average home, new research shows.
Shockingly, that's the most affordable homes in the capital have been for more than 4 years, figures from Zoopla show.
But London is far from alone in having high house price to earning ratios.
In Cambridge and Oxford you need to pay 12.2 and 11.9 times average earnings to get the average home, while Bournemouth (9.7 times), Bristol (9.2 times), Portsmouth (7.9 times) and Southampton (7.5 also need residents to pay vastly more than they make in a year.
"The gap between earnings and prices needs to close further in order to make a material difference to would be purchasers," Zoopla's Richard Donnell said.
But while these cities have the biggest gaps between wages and homes, things there are at least improving. That can't be said of everywhere.
"There are 12 cities where the annual growth in house prices is below the growth in average earnings," Donnel said.
"Lower-priced cities in northern England are actually getting less affordable than their southern counterparts when you consider that the annual percentage growth in house prices is outstripping earnings growth.”
Edinburgh and Liverpool are seeing homes slip further away from would-be buyers the fastest, with house price growth of 5.8%, Zoopla found.
Glasgow was found to be the most affordable major city to buy in, with local homes costing just 3.7 times average earnings.
This is the house price to local earnings ratio in the UK's major cities, according to Zoopla:
- London - 13.1x
- Cambridge - 12.2x
- Oxford - 11.9x
- Bournemouth - 9.7x
- Bristol - 9.2x
- Portsmouth - 7.9x
- Southampton - 7.5x
- Edinburgh - 7.4x
- Cardiff - 7.2x
- Leicester - 6.4x
- Manchester - 5.9x
- Birmingham - 5.8x
- Leeds - 5.7x
- Belfast - 5.4x
- Nottingham - 5.2x
- Aberdeen - 5.1x
- Sheffield - 4.9x
- Newcastle - 4.5x
- Liverpool - 4.4x
- Glasgow - 3.7x
